


Cuddle Time

by ErinPrimette, KFawkes



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-16 11:23:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16953078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinPrimette/pseuds/ErinPrimette, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KFawkes/pseuds/KFawkes
Summary: Based on Prompt 52: "Can we Cuddle?"Wanting to be free of the Reapers' indoctrination after Shepard saves his life, Saren seeks someone to help him remove the Reaper tech and free his mind. What would it take to convince Miranda Lawson to help him get his chance at redemption?





	Cuddle Time

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request I made that was originally posted on Tumblr by KFawkes, but considering its recent purge, I kinda had to negotiate with her on posting it here to save this one-shot.

If you told Miranda that she’d be shaking up with a turian most famously known for enacting a geth army and helping the Reapers try to take over the galaxy… Well, she’d have been very skeptical.

Alright, far more than just skeptical. Miranda probably would have just laughed in your face and asked if you thought she was insane– because she was pretty positive that Saren Arterius would be the last person she’d ever end up with.

Only, here she was. Shaking up with a turian… The funny thing is that she owed it all to Shepard. If Jane hadn’t talked him down that day on the Citadel, he wouldn’t have made it out alive. Part of her got scared thinking about what could have happened if Shepard hadn’t… where would she be now?

It wasn’t like Saren got off the hook… he was incarcerated for awhile, but after Shepard died and the galaxy started going to shit he broke out and found tracked her down. To say Miranda was surprised by the sudden visit of the man was only part of it. Most of her thought he wanted to kill her when he showed up, or maybe he wanted to use her as a ploy in some Reaper bullshit.

But there was something about the way that he looked at her when asking for her help… Miranda didn’t see the monster everyone else did, she saw a man that desperately craved freedom.

Saren wanted to be better… to get that Reaper tech out of him, to hopefully have his mind back one day. And even Miranda knew she was his best bet. Sometimes she’d think back to the face he wore when she actually agreed to help him. To be honest, she didn’t know why she had said yes. There as just a part of her that knew he was trapped. That he’d been used as a pawn and manipulated by indoctrination… If anyone could relate to being used it was her.

Fast forward 8 months and here she was… Sitting across from him while he tinker around on a busted omni-tool with brow plates lowered frustratedly. He’d been working on that damn thing for hours and Miranda loved watching his thinking face more than she wanted to admit. He’d do this thing where he would slide the tip of his tongue to the corner of his mouth and she found it so damn endearing.

“You’re watching me again, aren’t you…” Saren purred not looking to her as the omni-tool lit in a bright orange, than flickered out again.

“Who me? Course not…” Miranda replied as she cross her legs, most definitely watching him from over her datapad.

“I don’t buy it, Lawson.” He replied with a smile placing the broken item to the side as he lean back in his chair eyeing her finally.

She looked so beautiful to him, and he couldn’t believe his eyes every time he got a look at her. How had he gone from the shithole he was in to this life with her. He thought he was going to die, that he’d never have a life again… but he did. And he owed it all to the woman before him.

“Alright, fine. I like watching you work. Does it bother you?” Miranda felt bashful in that moment which was the main thing she hated about being in a relationship.

It was hard for her to feel vulnerable, but she did with him. She couldn’t believe most days that she had found the real Saren inside there… that underneath the taint of corruption that poisoned his mind, there was the man she fell for. The man looking at her right now. It was hard for her to believe she could have it all… yet she really did, didn’t she?

Saren smiled at her, his bright blue eyes flickering affectionately as he stand and walk towards her slowly. Miranda didn’t break his gaze but she returned the smile in full setting the datapad besides her on the couch.

“You know you’d never bother me… I’m still here because of you, Meer. I have a mind of my own again because of you…” He kneeled down in front of her pulling her hand between his own holding a rueful look to his face. He hated the man he had become… that he’d been so weak and almost doomed everyone in existence.

“Well, I can’t take all the credit. Cerberus funded the whole thing if you’ll remember, you should be thanking the Illusive Man.” She replied with a smirk and a wink squeezing his hand softly. They shared a moment of silence before she pulled a hand to his cheek beginning again. “I should get some sleep… I leave first thing in the morning. Shepard thinks this one is important… It might take awhile, I’m not sure when I’ll be back…”

Miranda hated leaving, but she knew she had to. They had a job to do. They had a galaxy to protect… she had this to protect.

“We can go to bed on one condition…” Saren purred back with mandibles flickering playfully as she nodded rolling her eyes back with a smile. “We cuddle.”

Miranda couldn’t help but laugh, she expected to hear a lot of things– but cuddling was not one of them. “There’s just something about a 7 foot tall turian asking you to cuddle…”

She laughed once more pushing herself from the couch as she wrapped her arms around him tightly; trying to remember every second of it. Saren picked her up like she was nothing as she wrapped her legs firmly around his waist kissing him sweetly.

“What do you say, Lawson?”

“Hm….” Miranda tilted her head side to side, pulling a hand to her chin tapping it as she look to the side as if in deep thought. “You gotta deal.”

Miranda may have been skeptical about Saren at first, but now he was the only thing she was absolutely sure of. And damn it this time she was gonna have her cake and eat it too.


End file.
